Reading Boileau: An Integrative Study of the Early "Satires"

Conclusion

Conclusion The overriding presence and personality ofthe speaker dominate the early Satires. At every bend in this multifaceted construct the reader encounters this creative figure, underpinning and thus reinforcing the intertextual connections predicated on theme, image, causality, logic, tonality, syntax, and association. The preceding analyses have attempted to demonstrate the importance ofhis determining voice in the poems. The character whom we call the speaker or the poet's persona emerges as a vibrant human being, full of self-doubt and contradictions, equally as complex as the contemporaneous Arnolphe or Andromaque. In formal verse satire it has long been accepted as axiomatic that the speaker exhibits character traits that are inherent in the poet's own psychological makeup. While we must not betray the literariness of the Satires by looking upon them as an autobiographical exercise, it is nonetheless essential for the informed reader to assume that the character of the speaker in these poems originates in and thus derives from the poet himself . For this reason Borgerhoff in his groundbreaking work on Boileau spoke of the lyricism in this apparently rigid classical writer. Borgerhoff attempts to delimit the myriad guises of Boileau-literary critic, social commentator, satirist, poet, careerist, etc.-and to focus on ' the obvious factthat very much of his verse is implicitly or explicitly about himself. ... Satire was, I suppose, Boileau's way, as the fable was La Fontaine's way, ofbeating the game and of expressing himselfwith freedom in an age which had done so much to discourage lyricism.1 The peculiar situation of the satirist/speaker establishes a special relationship between himself and his audience. Obliged 118 Conclusion to satisfy his readers that his vituperations are well-founded, and not the products of personal vindictiveness or rank prejudice , the satirical speaker must maintain at least a semblance of upright virtue.2 His objective, after all, is to censure dullness whenever and wherever he may find it. The speaker thus maintains a balancing act, since the guise of vir bonus, however necessary, must not drift into unctuous rectitude or piety, which would repel the model honnete homme reader.3 To facilitate the reader's understanding of the speaker, his public stance and, more importantly, his private side combine to create a finely nuanced persona. The result is a person with whom the reader may feel marked empathy. On one level then, verse satire as Boileau practiced it might be viewed more as a study in character than a playful but serious commentary on society's foibles. Contrary to the staid classical image that has persisted since the publication of L'Art pohique in 1674, Boileau's persona in the early Satires has traits in common with the standard libertin ideology of the early part of the century, traditionally associated with the figure ofTheophile de Viau as examined by such scholars as Antoine Adam and Rene Pintard.4 While hardly revolutionary, Satire VIII's insistence on the primacy of nature over reason as the criterion ofuniversal truth questions orthodox philosophy's first principles. In this and other Satires Boileau's neglect of God, the soul, and the essentiality of reason as officially promulgated by the Church and State stems from the satirist's perception of the disparity between abstract conceptions and the reality that he observes everywhere around him, exaggerated, of course, for comic effect. The spiritual vocabulary used to elucidate Damon's desire to find salvation in "quelque antre" (I, v. 25) far from the iniquities of Paris tends to trivialize the solemnity of the devotional impulse, as does the speaker's devotion to Saint Moliere in Satire II. Obvious examples of instinctual, natural behaviors-the racehorse in Satire I~ the barking dog in Satire VII, the ant and the jackass of Satire VIII-represent an authenticity, a standard of truth that transcends reason's capacity to dictate alternative behaviors. In his deviations from the idyllic Golden Age as imagined in Satire ~ man has become the hollow, smug, ignoble creature that the Satires so adroitly particularize for the reader. More important than the generalized notion of fa grande nature as source o( truth in the Satires is the individual's 119 Conclusion awareness of and fidelity to his or her own nature. For the libertins , one's "nature" was an infallible guide, an inner voice dictating behavior. Too often, however, social pressures to conform suppress this predetermined, instinctive force. As Antoine Adam demonstrates in his...